Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is a two-act ballet written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1892.  This ballet follows his other previous works of Swan Lake (1876) and The Sleeping Beauty (1889).  Tchaikovsky based The Nutcracker on an older children’s story titled The Nutcracker And The Mouse King.  Tchaikovsky made significant changes to the story to be able to feature it in a ballet to be performed on the stage.

The story takes place on Christmas Eve.  It involves a young girl, Clara (character has the name of Marie in some productions), who sneaks downstairs long after the adults have gone to bed.  The ballet takes place in the mind of the girl, a sort of dream sequence, if you will.  Surrounded by a large Christmas tree and decorations, Clara finds herself in the center of a fight between the Mouse Army and a team of gingerbread soldiers.  A nutcracker that stands in the room becomes human and leads the charge against the mice.  The Nutcracker wins the battle and the mice retreat.  In a show of appreciation for her assistance, The Nutcracker, who is really a prince that has come back to life after Clara has broken the spell, takes Clara on a journey.  During the production, all the toys and dolls that surround the Christmas tree come to life and are the characters that make up the ballet.

The Nutcracker leads Clara into The Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar-Plum Fairy.  There, they encounter sweet delicacies from around the world.  It is in The Land of Sweets that the sweets themselves come to life and dance for Clara and The Nutcracker.  Afterwards, Clara and The Nutcracker are led back to her house.

Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker is his most popular ballet and has been performed on stages around the world since its inception.  Many recordings of the complete ballet have been made.  The first audio recording made available to the public was by Herman Finck and the London Palace Orchestra in 1909.

Tchaikovsky highlighted the last eight movements of the ballet and titled it The Nutcracker Suite.  It was arranged for an orchestral performance.  In fact, The Nutcracker Suite was premiered six months before the ballet and proved to be more popular than the complete ballet for many years.  The Nutcracker Suite was arranged for an orchestral performance outside of the ballet itself.  This is the most popular part of the complete ballet.  The Nutcracker Suite is what most people are familiar with.  It commonly appears on many artists’ recordings outside of the complete ballet and contains the movements :

1. The Miniature Overture
2. The March
3. Dance Of The Sugar-Plum Fairy
4. Russian Dance (Trepak)
5. Arabian Dance
6. Chinese Dance
7. Dance Of The Reed Flutes
8. Waltz Of The Flowers

The Nutcracker Suite can be found as a complete piece, or its individual parts played singularly on many Christmas albums and compilations.

How do you know if your CD has the complete ballet or just The Nutcracker Suite?  The complete ballet would take up more than one CD or LP.  If you have the complete ballet, there will always be at least two CDs, with the second CD usually containing excerpts from other Tchaikovsky compositions, Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty, to fill in space.

I have CDs and LPs of the complete ballet.  I have some that contain only The Nutcracker Suite.  And I have many CDs that feature only one of the movements of The Nutcracker Suite.  Most common singular selections include Dance Of The Sugar-Plum Fairy, Russian Dance (Trepak) and Waltz Of The Flowers.

For this list I only included the whole ballet or recordings of The Nutcracker Suite.  Individual songs throughout my collection are not included in this list.